EDITORIAL: In budgeting, pay now, or pay even more later

The Montgomery County Commission has an unenviable task this summer, when you think about it.

In an election year, and with 600-plus additional students entering Clarksville-Montgomery County Schools in August, commissioners must weigh the reality of rapid student population growth against widespread taxpayer demands for controlled spending.

Schools Director B.J. Worthington and CMCSS Finance Director Danny Grant, backed by other Central Office staff, have come to the County Commission with another balanced schools budget, to their credit ... all told, a $283 million combined schools budget that has already gained the unanimous approval of the School Board.

County Mayor Carolyn Bowers and commissioners Loretta Bryant, Tommy Vallejos, Glen Demorest and Robert Nichols, comprising the county Budget Committee, became the first elected officials in county government to officially receive the proposed schools budget recently, and Bowers left Grant and Worthington with an assignment.

Bowers said the school system needs to pare down its capital projects list for the coming fiscal year.

CMCSS is putting into practice cost-cutting measures - things like leasing rather than buying new classroom computers, which saves the county hundreds of thousands of dollars, we're told, and they're extending the life of the school buses, with each new bus valued at around $80,000.

Still, CMCSS and the County Commission were about $5 million apart on the schools' capital projects budget at last report, Bowers has said.

One option to help the schools reach their goal, Bowers said, might be to transfer 3 cents from property taxes out of the county's debt service and into the general fund. Bowers has said the county's financial advisers have said this can be done with no adverse impact on the county's fiscal health.

Bowers said she and the Budget Committee will have to "burn the midnight oil" in the days ahead to resolve the remaining snags in the budget, especially given that the announcement by state officials of a new certified tax rate after the countywide reappraisal has met with delays. Bowers said it looks like a commission vote on the budget may therefore come no earlier than the July session, and more likely, August. The new fiscal year begins July 1.

Of the proposed $282.6 million in funding for the 2014-15 school year, $224.8 million will go toward operational costs, a 2 percent increase from $220.4 million in 2013-14.

The school system estimates 31,935 students - approximately 660 more than in 2013-14 - will attend here in 2014-15, and CMCSS plans to spend an average of $8,699 per student. Without raising taxes, they have absorbed the cost of the new students, Grant has said.

Local revenue will provide $87.95 million in funding, with 87 percent of it coming from property and local sales taxes.

It's a tightrope that county commissioners are walking, and an election year doesn't make it any easier, politically speaking. But if not this year, officials may have to make some even bolder decisions in the next budget to adequately fund the needs of our schools, as well as public safety, warranted by inevitable population growth.

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EDITORIAL: In budgeting, pay now, or pay even more later

The Montgomery County Commission has an unenviable task this summer, when you think about it.